Library

Canada West 1924
Ottawa: Department of Immigration and Colonization
Collection of Glenbow Library

Glenbow's Library documents the history of Western Canada, from the time the buffalo roamed the plains to the coming of the railroad, the settlement of the West, and to political, economic, and social events in Alberta today.

Glenbow's Library collection includes over 100,000 books, pamphlets, and journals relating to the history of the southern Alberta region.

The collection complements Glenbow's core collections and contains volumes on art, ethnology, military history, and mineralogy.

Over 5,000 maps document the exploration and development of this region.

The Library holds over 6,000 trade catalogues - publications from companies as diverse as Eaton's and John Deere that supplied the daily requirements of a population living on the frontier.

The school book collection includes textbooks used by generations of children to learn their letters and numbers.

The newspaper clipping collection consists of thousands of clippings from local newspapers that have been copied and organized into subject files for easy retrieval; the Library also has a number of newspapers on microfilm from communities in the southern part of the province.

If you already know which area of the collections you would like to search, select the database from the drop-down menu below. To find out which areas of the collection are searchable online and how to search the collections, click here.

The Library and Archives are on the sixth floor of the Museum. There are coin photocopiers available, but all material must be used in the Reading Room.